


Howlrunner

by Syrena_of_the_lake



Category: Star Wars Legends: X-wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole, Star Wars Legends: X-wing Series - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, OC Shistavanen female
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8879143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/pseuds/Syrena_of_the_lake
Summary: 4 months after the victory at Yavin, the Rebel Alliance desperately needs a new base of operations. The fledgling Rogue Squadron is on the job, but someone else is on their trail.





	1. Scent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shihadchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/gifts).



Of the few Shistavanen who ever left Uvena Prime, most were Trackers. Many were hired by the Empire, perhaps out of some inborn instinct to follow authority, to bow to the will of the Alpha, or perhaps simply because the Empire had the deepest pockets and the farthest-reaching territory.

Kerel Shyr did not disdain authority, but the reek of the Imperial war machine repulsed her. On the other hand, she did not disdain credits; a true predator knew that hunger must be sated before all other considerations. Shyr had her ship, hard-worn but hard-won, and therefore her independence - but hunger could not be denied. And so she kept to the Outer Rim, hiring her services out to the local magistrates and the occasional proud Moff but holding herself aloof from their daily scheming and prowling. The Rebellion was nothing but a Core World obsession, a bogeyman in the closet.

For many in the Rim territories, Shyr and others like her were the only bogeymen. Hunters in the night with real teeth, real claws – not imaginary wraiths lurking in hyperspace.

Or so she thought, before Yavin.

Word spread slowly, in hushed whispers, but it spread. Word of a moon-sized weapon that had obliterated Alderaan. Word of a boy from a dusty Rim world who had almost single-handedly destroyed that weapon. Word of a bounty big enough to dazzle the eyes of the most level-headed Hunter.

Soon, the Rim would be flooded with Rebel ships harrying and fleeing the Empire by turns, and with Imperials floundering between star systems like frenzied pups destroying the very tracks they sought.

A wise Hunter, Shyr knew, waited for the prey to come to her.

* * *

Newly minted Lieutenant Wedge Antilles knew it was naïve of him to think things would be different after the Battle of Yavin. On one hand, everything had changed. The Emperor's tool of terror had been reduced to slow-spinning debris. The Rebellion had proved its viability as a galactic force to be reckoned with, and new recruits and funds were funneling in every day.

But their survival still depended on luck, equipment that had seen better days before the Clone Wars, and the safety of a quick escape into hyperspace lanes. The temples on Yavin 4 would not be safe for long; the Empire's retribution may have been slow in coming, but the danger grew every day. From the most grizzled generals to the grubbiest mechanics, Alliance personnel cast furtive and ever more frequent looks at the still-empty skies, waiting.

The Rebellion needed a new base, and badly. Everyone knew it; it was the white bantha in every room.

_So why did I get stuck holding the thermal detonator?_

"You see, kid," Solo was ostentatiously explaining to Luke across the hangar, "the first thing you gotta know about the military – even a ragtag outfit like this one – is not to volunteer for anything. Ever."

Wedge hefted a hydrospanner, contemplating its value as a projectile weapon. Solo's head stuck up temptingly between stacks of crates. It was a simple matter of trajectory... Nah, he might damage something valuable if he missed.

"Watch out for bright ideas." Solo was still talking. _News flash_ , thought Wedge. "Maybe you see a problem and speak up about it. What happens? BOOM." Solo thumped his hand on a particularly resonant panel of the _Falcon_ 's hull. "The way the brass sees it, you've just up and volunteered to fix it."

"But–" Luke started to say.

Solo talked over him. "And maybe you get this really good plan for a mission. I mean _really_ good, like someone needs to act _now_ or you'll miss your only chance. Guess what?"

"Boom?" asked Luke wryly.

"Damn straight. You've just volunteered to get it done. See what I mean? It pays to keep your head down and just do what they tell you. Don't get cocky, and don't get any ideas."

Chewbacca's throaty laugh echoed from his perch atop the _Falcon_. The Wookiee was always fixing something. Wedge had never seen a ship with so many modifications – or that required such frequent maintenance.

"That was different!" protested Solo. "And it was one time."

Chewbacca warbled something.

"Okay, _two_ times. Happy?"

Wedge grinned. It was hard not to like Solo, even in spite of himself. After all, the man was Corellian. He was also right.

Someone clapped Wedge heavily on the shoulder from behind, and he staggered. "About time you learned to _leverage_ those big brains of yours, _Wedge_." Wes Janson had lost most of the pallor from the illness that had kept him out of the Battle of Yavin. His trademark good humor had taken longer to recover, to the point where Wedge was almost glad to hear one of his friend's terrible puns.

Almost.

"So I hear you're going to find us a new base, Lieutenant." Wes threw a mocking salute. "Make it drier than this one, would you? The jungle humidity doesn't do great things for my hair. Gave Hobbie pimples, too, poor kid. Oh, and while you're at it, see about something with a seaside view. Nothing too fancy, just some dunes and a nice stretch of uninterrupted water. Maybe some girls. Oh, and–"

Wedge let a toothy smile spread across his face until his cheeks creaked.

Wes stuttered to a halt. "Uh, Wedge? Did that big brain of yours misfire?"

"I just had another idea."

"Doesn't that exceed your quota?"

"Since you have so many exacting criteria," Wedge began, immensely pleased with himself, "I think you should play a greater role in selecting our new base."

"Throw darts at a starmap?"

Wedge refused to admit he'd considered it. Assigning the reconnaissance of specific systems to specific pilots was not a task he relished. What were aides always telling General Dodonna? _When in doubt, delegate._  "You've just volunteered to coordinate recon. Congratulations, Wes. You've filled _your_ quota and taken a load off my mind all at the same time. Very enterprising. Most efficient. I'll put that on record for your next performance appraisal," Wedge offered magnanimously.

"Thanks a lot. Anything I can ever do for you, just hesitate to ask," retorted Wes.

Solo and Luke walked by, both grinning. "I see what you mean, Han," said Luke, visibly struggling to keep a straight face. "In this fleet, it doesn't pay to be smart."

"Even if you're just a smartass," added Solo. He smirked at Wedge, who saluted cheerily.

Yeah, Solo wasn't so bad once you got to know him.

* * *

Over lomin ales, Wedge quizzed Luke about the Outer Rim, hoping for some kernel of information that might inspire another bright idea. Sending pairs of pilots to promising systems, instead of waiting for all the Recon scouts to return from their current missions, had been his only insight to date. Coincidentally, it was also what had landed him in this mess in the first place.

"Sorry," said Luke, grimacing, "but any place I've heard about is going to be pretty well-known. The only world I can tell you anything about is Tatooine, and that's out, after Mos Eisley and all."

Wedge shrugged. "I'll just have to start with the files they gave me, and spend a lot of time with an analyst and an astromech. But I wanted to ask around, too. I figure if people tell me about the same secret hidey-hole, well, it's not so secret. Narrow down the list a little."

Luke sat up straighter. "I can have Artoo cross-reference starcharts for you. If we link both our R2 units, they can analyze data in half the time."

"Great, I'll send my droid to interface with yours. I'm hoping to send a dozen teams out to the holes on the map. The analysts have pinpointed likely worlds, but I think it's a mistake to focus solely on planets." Wedge had been thinking about that for some time – about the patterns the Alliance had allowed themselves to fall into. Patterns that, if an Imperial tactician recognized them, could be fatal weaknesses. _If you always juke to port, sooner or later the lasers will beat you there._ Predictability got pilots killed. It was no less true on a larger scale.

That didn't mean his plan would be any easier to sell to his superiors. With some notable exceptions, higher ranking officers tended to be tactically conservative. In their world, change was threatening.

But in a dogfight, Wedge knew, it kept you alive.

"The Empire is systematic," he said, practicing his presentation on Luke. "They'll be sending little fleets of scouts and probe droids to the worlds flagged by their system as likely sympathizers, entry points and so on. I want to look at _unlikely_ worlds. Or even better: failed mining colonies, hollowed out asteroids, empty pirates' nests. We need to introduce random elements if we're going to stay ahead of them."

Luke nodded thoughtfully. "I see why they put you in charge."

Wedge winced. "There's no need to be insulting."

"No, I'm serious!" Luke protested. "Only… can we spare the pilots and the ships?"

"We'll have to." Wedge downed his drink, hoping the burn would counteract the cold knot that had settled in his stomach. "It won't take long to trace us here, and Command knows it. Your princess gave me her blessing to make this top priority."

"She's not _my_ princess," muttered Luke.

Wedge grinned, and the knot in his stomach loosened a little. He'd heard Solo say the same thing just a couple hours earlier. He made a mental note to ask Wes about the odds; he was sure the other pilot would know about any betting pools, if he wasn't actually running them.

As much as he liked Luke, Wedge's money was on Solo. Corellians never paid attention to the odds.

* * *

"The odds are not in our favor." Ackbar's gravelly voice was solemn. The Mon Calamari commander had personally led an earlier scouting party himself, with nearly disastrous results. "The fleet we can hide in the depths of space, but our ground forces? I fear we will evacuate Yavin only to scatter to the currents, with no eddies in which to rest."

"The more small teams we send out, the greater the odds that we'll find something." Wedge handed over the roster he'd drawn up. He wasn't on it, nor was Luke – their next mission was already planned by the princess herself.

"Snubfighters, small shuttles, reconnaissance craft… it is a good strategy," rumbled Ackbar. He scrolled down the datapad. "Not all of these pilots are trained in combat."

"No, but the ones who aren't are trained in insertion, or have experience trading – or smuggling. I tried to pair pilots for the best combination of skills."

Ackbar nodded, still reading, and then his bulbous eyes widened. "You have Janson with Klivian. Do you think that wise? They both harbor regret over not flying against the Death Star."

"Exactly," said Wedge. "It's a shared experience no one else will understand."

"You think they will be stronger for it."

"I do."

Ackbar's eyes half-closed in thought. "What of the value of an outside perspective?"

Wedge wrestled with the question a moment before answering. "With all due respect, sir, I think any other wingman would drive Hobbie further inside himself." _And Wes would drive any other wingman out of his mind_ , Wedge finished silently.

Ackbar's mouth gaped in a smile, and Wedge had the uncanny feeling that the Mon Calamari had intuited the remainder of his argument. Either that, or he'd experienced Wes Janson before and had reached the same conclusion.

"Very well. Your roster is approved. May the Force be with them."

* * *

Assigning missions to the pilots themselves proved to be every bit as difficult as Wedge had thought, if not for the reasons he'd anticipated. Wedge had worried about being questioned, argued with, resented… but it never occurred to him that he would keep getting sidetracked.

"Hey, Hobbie, we're going to be cockpit buddies!" Wes paused, clearly rerunning through the sentence again, and winced. "Um, that didn't come out quite how it was supposed to."

Hobbie didn't even blink. "My mother warned me not to climb into cockpits with strange men, and you're–"

"– as strange as they come," Wes finished the line in unison with Hobbie. "Guess you already heard."

"That you're strange? The whole galaxy knows that. I think there's an Imperial proclamation to that effect."

"Only one? I'm slipping."

Wedge let their banter run its course. He was relieved to see the two men were in relatively high spirits and already comfortable with each other. As Ackbar had pointed out, the pairing of two pilots with something to prove could go sideways quickly. And two depressed pilots could be a suicidal combination. But Wedge was banking on Wes's protective streak. He didn't know Hobbie that well yet, but the young man had been close to Biggs – from the sounds of it, almost as close as Luke had been – and that was as high a recommendation as anyone could want. 

"Well, let's get to it. Did you review your mission parameters?" asked Wedge when the other two pilots finally stopped trading jokes.

Wes shook his head mournfully. "Give the man an ounce of authority and he starts using bureau-babble. _Parameters…_ "

"Don't mind him," Wedge said to Hobbie. "He has trouble with polysyllabic vocabulary. That means long words," he explained, turning to Wes. "So stop me if I confuse you."

Wes grinned appreciatively.

"You'll be taking a short list of locations in the Anoat sector." Wedge motioned to his R2 unit, who obligingly projected a holomap. "Fly around – unobtrusively, if you can – and take notes. Incoming and outgoing traffic, signs of recent occupation, hints of Imperial activity. Logistics: are there any existing structures we could use for a base or hangars? Are they concealed? What kind of material resources does the site have?"

"That sounds like a job for Intelligence," objected Wes. "I didn't sign up for that."

"I've known that for years." Wedge shook his head regretfully. He turned to Hobbie. "It only shows when he opens his mouth, though, and that only happens when he's awake."

Hobbie laughed, and Wes shot him a betrayed look.

Wedge cleared his throat. "Back to business. You'll be taking a pair of Y-wing Longprobes–"

"Long haul, you mean," Hobbie muttered. "Those things have the speed of a wallowing Hutt. And that's not a fighter pilot's job, it's recon!"

Wedge frowned at him, and the younger man subsided. "We don't have enough recon specialists for the job at hand, and you know it, Klivian." Hobbie scowled but said nothing. "Besides, you may not be Recon trained, but you _do_ know tactics. You know what kind of a landing zone we need, what kind of escape routes, what kind of planetary terrain and solar system features can work to our advantage."

"What about our squadrons?" asked Wes seriously. "We're more than shorthanded after Yavin." He swallowed hard, and Wedge had to suppress his own wince at the memory of comrades lost. Of friends he'd failed.

Hobbie looked even more serious than usual. "Who's going to protect the supply convoys?"

"Luke and I will be working on that. We're starting up a new squadron, callsign Rogue." Wedge hesitated. He really wasn't supposed to tell them yet, but... "If all goes well, you'll both be part of it. So get out there, get the job done, and get back safe, okay? This isn't exactly an easy patrol duty. You're going to the holes in the map to find out what's there. It's why you're going in pairs. I'd send half a squadron if I could." Wedge grimaced. "We're recruiting and training around the clock, but we can't wait. We need to find a safe haven."

"It's that bad?" asked Hobbie quietly.

Wedge nodded.

Wes slapped his thighs. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go, Hobbs. I want to make sure Maintenance doesn't load the torpedo tubes with balloons to save weight. The first thing you need to know about Longprobes," he added, draping an arm across Hobbie's shoulders as they walked away, "is not that they're slow. It's that they _could be slower_. The ion cannon's locked forward – takes all the hard work out of aiming, and gets rid of those pesky heavy hydraulics. Less weight means less mass, less mass means less fuel, and that means–"

"More time listening to you, far from the reaches of civilization?"

"Exactly!"

Wedge shook his head as he watched the pair leave. Either he was both a brilliant tactician and personnel manager, in which case he had just increased his chances for promotion, more's the pity... or he had just condemned two of his few remaining friends to a long mission with even longer odds of success – or survival.


	2. Quarry

Corlaeon's three moons squatted low on the horizon. Nightfall on the planet was a half-hearted thing at best, between the reflected light of the moons and the four-shift factories casting their glow across Craterdown's pockmarked spaceport and the canyons that riddled the corlavite fields.

Shyr could have done without the spotlights, but the presence of the dim moons overhead was comforting. She was never at ease on a moonless planet.

A matched pair of TIEs screamed overhead, and Shyr's muzzle wrinkled in distaste. Not that she could be at ease on Corlaeon, moons or no moons. Not since the Imperial Garrison had taken over the corlavite factories. Some nonsense about efficiency, procedure, and all the other things humans valued alongside shiny armor and crisp uniforms. Shyr snarled wordlessly and turned her back on the lights of Craterdown.

She would spend the night in the box canyon where she had… landed, for lack of a better word. The snubfighter was still upright, if listing a little to port – but that was just a landing strut. Eminently reparable.

A jet of steam hissed from the exhaust port. It smelled like rotting urta-fish.

Well, that too could be fixed, with a few credits and favors exchanged. Shyr's skills as a Tracker were always in demand.

And backwater worlds with rundown spaceports were always crawling with lost things trying not to be found.

* * *

Hobbie sat in a corner booth, trying not to lean against the wall. Like everything else in Craterdown, the Smelting Pot Cantina was littered with tailings and coated in a black powder so fine it was almost greasy. On a windy day, even the spaceport shut down for low visibility. The unconsolidated corlavite fields were lucrative but messy to mine. Industry on Corlaeon had been a free-for-all until the Empire arrived; now the planet was choked in both black dust and red tape.

Hobbie entertained a brief fantasy of pushing shiny white stormtroopers down a sooty hillside. Given half a chance, Wes would probably draw something obscene on their breastplates. Speak of the devil…

"Even the napkins are grimy," complained Wes, setting two glasses on the table with a clunk.

"What is that?" Hobbie looked askance at the drinks.

"Iron Lung. Local specialty."

"It looks like contaminated hydraulic fluid."

Wes sniffed his glass and made a face. "It might be." He took a tentative sip and set the glass back down, his face carefully blank.

"Well?" asked Hobbie.

"We should bottle this and take it to our friends in Demolitions. If it doesn't blow up, I'm sure they can use it as an emulsifier or something." Wes stuck out his tongue. "Hovvie, ith my tongue black? Be theriouth, now."

Hobbie nodded earnestly. "Oh yeah. Black as Vader's boot polish."

"I think it _ith_ Vader'th booth polith." Wes scrubbed his teeth with his finger. "Better?"

"Looks like you have some kind of disease," said Hobbie cheerfully. "You'd better let me do the talking, Wes. In fact, you should probably keep your mouth shut until we get back to the fleet."

Wes glared at him. But he kept silent, worrying his tongue around his teeth. Hobbie began to consider buying a bottle of the stuff for the return trip. The resulting silence would surely be worth the price.

"Are you pothitive? How 'bout now? Thtill black?" Wes crossed his eyes and tried to look down his nose at his tongue. 

"Yep." Maybe two bottles, mused Hobbie. Or a keg.

"Tith thpit."

Hobbie smirked. "Tell me, oh brave bootlicker, what's our plan? This place clearly isn't a candidate."

"Except for sandblasting," Wes agreed, abandoning his attempts to clean his teeth. He lowered his voice. "Every place we've been so far is a bust. Unexpected patrols, smuggler traffic–"

"I was there too, remember?"

"So I thought we'd chat up the locals."

"We're not even looking in this system."

Wes jerked his head in the direction of a couple grubby-looking spacers slumped at the bar. "Any traffic going through the Ison Corridor is of interest. People stray too far or take a little-known shortcut, and there go half a dozen of our most promising sites."

Hobbie nodded thoughtfully. "So this is about doing less work."

For once, Wes didn't rise to the joke. "It's about saving time," he said gravely. "I have a feeling we'll need it."

* * *

Despite the sooty posters promoting _Timeliness Drives Progress_ and _Only You Can Stop Inefficiency_ , Craterdown did not seem to run on the same schedule as the corlavite factories. Whistles blew and klaxons blared, and no one in the Smelting Pot stirred anything except their drinks.

While Wes tried to chat up a morose Duros at the bar, Hobbie tried his luck in the darker corners. After all, he reasoned, that was how Luke Skywalker had met Han Solo, and that ended with the destruction of the Death Star. Wes was nearby for backup. What could go wrong?

The knife at his throat soon answered that.

"Speak your words, human. If they do not interest me, you will leave – or I will keep your head." The voice was a low growl.

Hobbie swallowed, and the knife scraped over the stubble he'd let grow to better blend in with the crowd. _So much for that_. He didn't even dare turn to see what sort of alien was behind him.

"I'm, ah, looking for passage offworld?"

The voice snorted. "Look elsewhere." The alien shoved him in the back, and Hobbie went sprawling. He knocked into a table, spilling the drinks on top of it. A hairy, long-snouted Whiphid rose menacingly from his – her? – chair. 

"I'll get you a new drink," said Hobbie hurriedly. "It's on me. I'll get you one too, uh…" He turned, but there was no one behind him.

The owner of the knife and the growl had vanished.

Hobbie patted his pockets, an icy pit of dread forming in his stomach. "Oh no." The adrenaline rush from the near-confrontation neatly channeled itself into near-panic. His pockets had been picked clean.

Wes was going to kill him. 

* * *

"You could have been killed," Wes rebuked him later, in the relative safety of the street.

If anything, Hobbie's face grew even more mournful. "It's worse than that."

"Worse how?"

"I think we've been made."

Wes boggled. " _How_?"

Hobbie patted his pockets meaningfully, and Wes sighed. They had backup forged documents in their ships, which were carefully hidden in a canyon in the exhausted corlavite fields; it would be inconvenient to get at the Y-wings, but not impossible. So what was Hobbie so worried about?

"Oh no." Wes's stomach sank.

"Oh yes."

"Tell me you didn't bring a copy of the list with you."

Hobbie bristled. "Of course I didn't! I'm not an idiot!"

Wes refrained from commenting. "What was in your pocket?"

Hobbie glared at Wes defiantly. "It's nothing they can trace, nothing that can identify us… not really." He sighed. "It was a carving of the Starbird."

Wes grimaced. The Alliance Starbird was instantly recognizable, like a phoenix rising, which was what made it such a powerful symbol. Having one in their possession was also enough to get them arrested, tried for treason and summarily executed. "That was a damn fool thing to do, Hobbie."

"I know," Hobbie said quietly. And then: "Biggs made it."

Wes winced. Losing the last memento of a fallen friend… that was one asteroid field he preferred not to fly into. Force knew he hated it when people blundered into his own.  _Damn you, Wedge, you did this on purpose._ He blew out a breath. "Okay, here's the plan. We get back to the Y-wings, make a loop around the system to collect some data, and get out of here before anyone comes looking for us. Okay?"

Hobbie didn't take the out. "Are you going to tell Wedge that I brought personal effects on a mission?" His voice was admirably even. After the _Rand Ecliptic_ , after losing two limbs in the call of duty, after watching helplessly from Yavin… Hobbie Klivian could hardly be called a kid anymore.

Still, it surprised Wes, and he was angry with himself for it. Had he been that wrapped up in his own private pain not to notice? And would he have done any differently if Jek Porkins had made him some trinket as a get-well gift?

"Wedge isn't a general yet," Wes grunted. It wasn't much of an answer. If he was honest with himself, Wes wasn't sure what his answer should be yet. It seemed to cheer Hobbie, though.

And Wes had been a Rebel pilot for long enough that he knew to take his victories where he could get them.

* * *

The shadow following them conveniently blended into the general gloom. A coating of corlavite dust made her dark gray fur even darker. Her eyes were slits, both to block out the dust and to keep from reflecting the slightest gleam of light.

 _Biggs_. The human-who-smelled-of-metal had said the name. It would be easy for Shyr to trace from her ship's computer. Fallen comrades were memorialized, left records – footprints in the Holonet, broken twigs in the database pathways – and Shyr's pulse quickened at the thought of the hunt. The other-human-who-mourned, the one with curiously blackened teeth, had mentioned Y-wings. Those lumbering banthas would not be much of a challenge, true, even with her ship's minor mechanical problems. But the hunt would be a welcome one all the same.

Her clawed fingers closed gently around the little wooden Starbird she had stolen from the human-who-mourned-and-smelled-like-metal. She moved to tuck it into the bag slung around her shoulder and hesitated. There was another carving nestled in that bag: once painted deep blue, now worn to pale wood, it was also a bird. A slender urrakil, the night-stalker, native to Uvena Prime and much admired by the cub who carved her.

 _Personal effects_. The human-who-mourned-and-smelled-like-metal carried his mourning with him in his pocket and called it _personal_. Shyr carried hers in her satchel and did not name it. She looked down at the Starbird, contemplating a man's grief cradled in her paw.

What good would it do her to carry two sorrows?

* * *

Climbing into the Y-wing's cockpit, Hobbie froze halfway.

Wes immediately drew his blaster. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Hobbie answered in a strangled voice, lowering himself to the ground once more. "Only look." His hand shook a little as he held an object out for Wes's inspection.

A little wooden Starbird, symbol of the Rebel Alliance – of freedom – sat innocuously in his palm. It had been carefully cleaned of the grime that coated everything else on the planet.

"It was on my seat," said Hobbie. "Just… sitting there."

Any other day, Wes would have made fun of his phrasing. Instead, he patted Hobbie's shoulder, cleared his throat, and cast about for something to say.

In the end, Hobbie said it for him. "Let's fly."

Neither man noticed the golden-eyed shadow crouched among the boulders. It disappeared while they were running through their pre-flight checks. Shortly afterwards, the two Y-wing Longprobes rose slowly into the sky, paced by a single Incom I-7 Howlrunner twisting through the canyons far below.  


	3. Chase

Shyr followed their meandering trail throughout the sector. She'd planted a tracking device in the X-wing belonging to the human-who-smelled-like-metal, and it transmitted sporadic bursts of information back to her disguised as sensor bounces or simple static. With every jump they moved away from the well-traveled hyperspace lanes, she let herself fall back a little further. In-system, she hid on the far side of moons, behind sensor-veiling rings or among metal-rich asteroids. With every stop they made, she learned more about the Rebel pilots.

They spent long stretches of time in systems with heavy traffic, long enough to analyze likely entry and exit points, but did little exploration of the planetary bodies themselves. The more obscure the system, the more time they spent poking around. They scanned, explored and even landed on the very spots that Shyr would use to take cover. It became a dance: she would tuck her Howlrunner away only to slip out before the Rebels stuck their noses in her hiding spot. They seemed to be searching for something, but Shyr doubted they even knew she was there.

She avoided connecting to the Holonet – even a low-level data stream might be noticed in a system with negligible comm traffic – but the mystery of the pilots' individual identities did not gnaw at her. Shyr knew their scents, the pattern of their voices, the light trails of their ion engines. They were two men who mourned: one who wore grief on his face, and one who veiled it with jokes. They moved like soldiers but spoke without discipline. They ranged seemingly at random throughout the sector, but to Shyr's keen eyes their movements revealed a purpose.

They were Rebels in search of a base.

She could take them now, if she wanted – turn in two small prizes to the Empire like a dog trained to heel. Shyr's lip curled. Shistavanen were not dogs trained to the hunt.

They were wolves _born_ for it.

She would track these men in search of a base back to their fleet, to their Alphas. And then she, Kerel Shyr, would finally track her prey to ground. Prey she had sought since long before these pilots had learned to mourn. 

It awoke an old hunger in her, a hunger that had nothing to do with her predatory instinct. Many times had the moons completed their dance around Uvena Prime while her family, her pack, had gone unavenged. She had almost given up on this chase, but the appearance of the two Rebel pilots had given her new hope. Now they - and her vengeance - were almost within reach.

Shyr's claws tightened on the controls and the Howlrunner leaped obediently forward into hyperspace.

* * *

When Wes had first seen the name _Hoth_ on the starmap, he'd thought it sounded warm.

He could almost hear Wedge laughing.

"Look on the bright side," reasoned Hobbie. Wes looked at him in surprise; he hadn't often heard that phrase from his current wingman. Hobbie shrugged. "Nobody in their right minds would look for us here."

"Nobody in their right minds would _come_ here!"

The frozen vistas of Hoth glittered before them. Rationally, Wes knew it was warmer by day than it would be at night, but it was all too easy to imagine the distant sun leeching warmth from the atmosphere when even the daytime temperatures were enough to make their ships creak in the cold.

"I suppose it could work," Wes acknowledged bleakly. _Someplace dry_ , he'd said. _With dunes and lots of water_. The joke was on him.

"No, it's no good," said Hobbie, checking the readouts from his portable scanner. "Our equipment wouldn't stand up to this. The mechanics would kill us for even suggesting it."

Wes sighed and watched the vapor cloud of his breath dissipate in the thin air. "It's not our job to make the decisions, Hobbie. Our job is to get the data. We're here, it's empty, it's on the list. It's that simple."

Hobbie shot him a dubious look but limited himself to just shaking his head. "Let's get back in the air, then, before our engines freeze along with everything else."

"I think my nose is frozen." Wes probed his face with a clumsy mittened hand. "Nope, it still moves. Maybe it's just my snot that's frozen."

"Too bad your mouth isn't frozen shut."

They bickered all the way back to their ships, just to keep warm. Hoth was the last planet on their scheduled list of stops, but Hobbie had identified another possibility just a short jump away. Before their hasty departure from Corlaeon, he'd heard rumors of an old pirates' holdout Rimward of the Ison Corridor. "Something about a rogue moon," said Hobbie. "I didn't exactly get to interview the guy."

"Rogue, huh?" Wes grinned. "That would be appropriate." Wedge and Luke had been working on a final roster for the new squadron when they'd left. It sounded promising; the names on it were some of the best remaining pilots in the fleet. 

Hobbie smiled. "They'd have to name the base after us, then. The Klivian-Janson Secret Station, how's that sound?"

"Terrible. The Wes Janson Memorial Headquarters sounds much better."

"Doesn't _Memorial_ imply you're dead?"

"You're right. Scratch that." Wes lobbed a snowball in Hobbie's direction before hopping into his cockpit. The Y-wing started even more sluggishly than usual – and they had only been planetside a few hours. The snubfighter might have been built for the frigid depths of space, but it wasn't impermeable to ice or blowing snow. Wes shook his head. Hobbie was right; this would never work. "Let's hurry it up," he said over the comm, suddenly anxious. "I've got two engines lit and in the green."

"I'm your wing."

Wind gusts buffeted the two ships as they took off, and for a moment Wes tensed – but the howling he heard was just the wind, not TIE fighters like he'd half-imagined.

One more stop, he told himself, and they'd be back to the relative civilization of Yavin 4, where it was nice and warm.

* * *

The Uglies were on them almost the moment they reverted to realspace.

Reflexively, Hobbie snap-rolled away from the lasers flashing across his fighter's nose and almost flew straight into the path of a proton torpedo.

Instead of pulling up, he threw all power to his rear shields let the blast push him through the rest of his roll. The torpedo must have been timed rather than set for proximity; even so, it might have killed him had he been in his X-wing. The Longprobe might move like a Hutt through mud, but it could take a pounding.

"Now it's time to give one back," he muttered. He thumbed his comm switch. "Still there, Rusty?" he asked his astromech. An R2 unit with faded red paint and a tendency to flake, Rusty wasn't as flashy as Skywalker's droid, but it did the job. It made a reassuring warble and a query scrolled across Hobbie's screen.

"Find me the Ugly that shot that torp." Hobbie glanced at his scope. The green blip that was Wes was close on the tail  of a blue diamond that represented unfriendly-unknown. _He's fine_ , Hobbie told himself. _Wes can handle a few pirates_.

Then Rusty screeched in tandem with a weapons lock, and he was strafed by an ungainly-looking starfighter with two TIE ball-shaped cockpits. The wings of a Z-95 Headhunter sprouted between them, perpendicular to the axis. 

"Nevermind, Rusty. I found him. How does a ship that ugly even fly?" Hobbie readied one of his own proton torpedoes, let loose with a few blasts from his un-aimed, unmovable ion cannon – "Might as well get some use out of the blasted thing," he muttered, and Rusty trilled agreement – and Hobbie inverted in a long loop that left him facing his own pursuer. "Gotcha."

The torpedo hit the portside TIE ball and detonated. Each TIE component must have been separately shielded; the second ball spun off into space until Hobbie's lasers hulled it.

"Nice shot!" Wes crowed over the comm. Hobbie grinned. It was the most action they'd seen in a month, not counting his bizarre assailant-pickpocket on Corlaeon. For just a moment, Hobbie let himself revel in the adrenaline rush.

"The rogue moon must be the pirate base," he commented. "Guess it's still in use, unless we can evict the current owners." Even as he said it, Hobbie knew it would never work. Two starfighters against a veritable swarm of pirates? Even if the odds were on their side, it would never be a suitable base for the Alliance. Clearly, too many people already knew about it.

Then a second cloud of Uglies boiled out of a large crater on the misshapen moon. The odds suddenly got a lot longer. "I'm your wing," he commed Wes, and received a double-click acknowledgement in return. Hobbie gritted his teeth and followed Wes as they dived back into the fray.

* * *

Shyr blinked at the lightshow that greeted her upon exiting from hyperspace. Her two Rebel pilots were weaving with surprising skill among a small swarm of enemy ships with unusual profiles. Shyr bared her teeth. Uglies, cobbled together from salvage and scraps, with unpredictable weapons and pilots both. _Pirates_.

She could use this to her advantage.

Shyr opened a comm channel to broadcast on a wide frequency. She filled her lungs, pretendig she was breathing the crisp night air of her homeworld instead of a recycled supply. And then she howled for all the system to hear before charging into the dogfight, her laser cannons already firing.

* * *

The sudden wail over the comm made Hobbie jump – fortunately _not_ into the path of a stray torpedo, this time. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

"What was that?" he yelped.

"Howlrunner. Incoming, point eight five." Wes's voice was clipped. The newcomer was a compact, fixed-wing snubfighter with a small profile and extra speed. It could outmaneuver an X-wing; even if its lasers were underpowered, as was typical, it could cut their slower Y-wings to ribbons.

"Spread out," said Wes. "I'll lead him off. You try to get clear of the gravity well, get back to base with our intel–"

Before Hobbie could yell at his self-sacrificing wingman, a second wordless howl echoed over the comm. Hobbie watched in astonishment as the Howlrunner spun, vaped an Ugly that was one dorsal wing short of a Lambda shuttle, and snapped hard to port on the tail of another fighter.

"Welcome to the fun!" Hobbie broadcast on an open channel. He felt like howling himself out of sheer relief. "Howlrunner, this is Red Two. Consider me your wing."

Wes's Y-wing formed up beside him. "Me too, Howlrunner. You've got the speed, we've got the punch. Lead on."

Their mystery friend made no reply, but the snubfighter waggled its wings – pilots' parlance for a friendly greeting and show of respect.

"Load up both torpedo tubes, Rusty." Hobbie's smile broadened. "The odds just got a lot shorter."

* * *

After the next wave of Uglies flew into the trio's combined teeth, the pirates retreated to their moon base. Disabled ships drifted and wreckage spun lazily into orbit. "Let's get out of here before they bring any more friends to the party," said one of the Rebel pilots over the comm. "Howlrunner, this is Red One. I'm feeding you coordinates for a rendezvous. We'd like to thank you for the assist in person."

Shyr glanced at the coordinates. They were clearly a sentry point, not the Rebel base itself – not that Yavin was much of a secret anymore – but it was a start. "I am your wing," she responded, and she reached into her satchel to touch the urrakil carving. She gently traced its upswept wings, so like the Starbird that the human-with-metal carried.

"Soon," she murmured.  

* * *

After a brief delay at the sentry point, when the Howlrunner pilot transmitted a private message to base, authorization came in from none less than Princess Leia herself. The newcomer had cleared security and could proceed to Yavin 4.

The landing platform lights gleamed with a welcome light as the three battle-scarred starfighters descended through the jungle canopy.

"What do you think he's like?" Wes commed Hobbie. "Howlrunner, I mean. Think he'll be a Rogue?"

Hobbie rolled his eyes. "I think it's a she."

"Ten credits."

"You're on."

Hobbie jumped down from the Y-wing without waiting for the ladder – his prosthetic leg could take the abuse, he knew, and he wanted to make a good impression on the Howlrunner pilot.  

As he walked across the hangar, he could hear the echo of Wes's laughter bouncing off the walls.

The silhouette climbing out of the Howlrunner was undoubtedly feminine – but _large_. Hobbie swallowed and stepped forward boldly. "Can I buy you a drink for saving my life?" He put on his best smile, the one Wes had said would win over the ladies if he only used it more.

The pilot took her helmet off, revealing a shaggy mane of bristling dark gray fur. Two pointed ears. Glowing golden eyes. And a snout full of sharp teeth bared in his direction. "I am Kerel Shyr. Callsign Alpha. You fly like bantha fodder. It is no wonder you smell like metal replacement parts. Prosthetics, yes? You must crash much."

"I… what?" Hobbie gaped at her.

She ignored his stammered question. "What is your name?" she demanded.

It belatedly dawned on Hobbie that her throaty growl of a voice had not been distorted by the comm at all. She was a Wolfman. _(Wolfwoman?_ he wondered.) A Shistavanen, one of a species renowned in equal measure for its bravery and bloodlust.

The lightly-furred skin around her muzzle wrinkled. Hobbie couldn't tell if she was smiling or snarling at him. "You talk like you fly. Slow and stupid."

Well, that answered _that_.

"Derek Klivian," Hobbie introduced himself. "Callsign Bantha Fodder."

Shyr stared at him. It was unnerving, the way her eyes didn't blink.

"Sorry. Just a joke. Everyone calls me Hobbie."

She pivoted on her heel and stalked away.

"No sense of humor," he muttered to himself.

"My humor is excellent," Shyr called back over her shoulder. "So is my hearing. Your joke was not funny, Bantha Fodder."

Walking up from behind him, Wes laughed. "I think you've made a friend, Hobbs."

"She hates me," said Hobbie mournfully.

"Don't take it personally." Wes shrugged. "Maybe she hates everybody."

"She _growled_ at me."

"She's Shistavenen. She probably growls at everybody." Then Wes cleared his throat. "Arr-ahem."

Hobbie scowled. "Now you're just making fun of her. Stop it."

Wes shook his head slowly. "Not what I meant, Hobbs."

A throaty chuckle came from behind Hobbie, and a furry paw reached forward to slap Wes's shoulder. He staggered. "Not bad for a human," said Shyr.

"She thinks I'm funny," whispered Wes in _sotto voce_.

Shyr bared her teeth. "Your teeth are not black now," she said in approval. "It is good. Rotten teeth do not attract healthy mates." She turned to Hobbie. "Yours is the little bird, yes? Do not lose it anymore. It is hard to find so small a thing in the big galaxy."

Again she turned to walk away, leaving both pilots slack-jawed in her wake.  

* * *

"She spoke with Princess Leia more than with me," Wedge explained to them the following day. They sat outside on the temple steps, and Wes was sunning himself with a small piece of sheet metal he'd picked up somewhere in the hangar. "But I know she brought a wealth of data. Not that you two didn't," he hastened to add. "General Dodonna already has a team analyzing what you brought back, and Ackbar pointed out a couple sites that he called _highly_ promising. But Shyr gave us something else altogether. Potential resources, military targets, corrupt officials that need to be taken down…"

"Sounds like a lot of work," Wes deadpanned.

"Sounds like a job for Rogue Squadron," corrected Hobbie. "Is she in?"

Wedge hesitated, and Wes leaned forward on his elbows. "What's her story, anyway? Back on Corlaeon, I thought she was going to slit Hobbie's throat."

Wedge's eyebrows shot up. "And you brought her _here_?"

"In my defense, I didn't know it at the time."

Hobbie intervened. "All that time, Shyr was just trying to reach the Rebellion, wasn't she? But why?"

Wedge looked solemn. "As I understand it, it's the anniversary of her family's death."

Ice crept into Hobbie's gut. She seemed so fierce, like nothing could pierce her armor. "How long ago?" 

"Their years are hard to count. It's something like the seventh pass of the third moon… a few years, I think. She lost her mate and child when the Empire attacked their homeworld." Wedge patted Hobbie on the shoulder. "You never know what secrets people carry around with them."

* * *

Hobbie found Shyr at the very edge of the clearing. "I bring you a gift," he said formally, "in gratitude for the gift of our lives. And," he added awkwardly, "for my Starbird."

She seemed startled. "You know the ritual. There are other Shistavanen here?"

"Well, yes, but not here right now." Hobbie ran a hand through his hair. "I had to look it up in the database," he admitted.

"Show me your gift."

He pulled the polished white object from behind his back and proffered it solemnly.  "A stormtrooper helmet. For you to use when you drink the blood of your enemies."

Shyr's golden eyes fixed on him, unblinking. Then she threw back her head and bayed with laughter. "You do have a sense of humor, Bantha Fodder! That was _funny_." Then she threw an arm around his shoulders and pulled him back towards the barracks. "Come. I have ishta'a nectar. We will get drunk together as is the way of your people. We will remember the fallen. And we will drink to the blood of our enemies, that it may run thick and clot so we may feast upon it."

"Death to the Empire," echoed Hobbie weakly.

Shyr came to a sudden halt. "Wait." She reached into the krayt-hide bag she seemed to always carry with her, and she pulled out something small and pale. "First, I show you my grief and my purpose. I have already seen yours. It is good for these things to be shared."

She opened her paw, and Hobbie gently touched the carving. It was a bird of prey with swept wings and a wicked beak, carved with some skill. "It's beautiful."

"It is the urrakil, the night-stalker, the hunter of that which hides in the shadows. We will be these things for the Empire," Shyr growled. Then her voice softened. "My cub carved this after his first blood moon. It was the last thing he made for me. Take it."

Hobbie set the bird gently in his palm. It was surprisingly light and as delicate as a living bird. 

"I have held your grief and your life in my hands." Shyr's golden eyes fixed on Hobbie's face. "Now you hold mine."

Reverently he placed the urrakil carving back in her waiting paws. "That's what friends are for," Hobbie said, surprised to find he meant it. "Now, tell me about this ishta'a nectar. Will it turn Wes's teeth orange?"

Shyr barked a laugh, and Hobbie grinned in return. Together, they turned their backs on the jungle. Wes would be waiting for them, along with Wedge – and likely Luke and Han Solo as well.

Not long ago, Hobbie had thought himself alone in the galaxy.

He could get used to being wrong.


End file.
